APOSTOLIC CHRISTIAN WORLD RELIEF

LIFESONG FOR ORPHANS

Lifesong for Orphans is a Christian-centered ministry advocating care for orphans around the world.  Founded in 1993 by Gary Ringger of Gridley, Illinois, this nonprofit organization (member of the Evangelical Council For Financial Accountability) has all fundraising and administrative costs paid for by TMG Foundation, allowing 100% of their donations to go directly to caring for orphans. These care services are provided in adoption grants and interest-free loans and orphan and orphanage care.

All around the world an estimated 140-200 million orphans and abandoned children live on streets, in foster homes and in orphanages. They don't know what it truly means to "belong". Overwhelming numbers of these children left vulnerable are abused, starving and trafficked throughout the world. James 1:27 teaches, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. . ."  Lifesong helps to answer this call of service to orphans by helping them become adopted into Christian Families through Adoption Grants and Interest-Free Loans. These programs help remove the financial roadblock of adoption which often prevents many families from taking this step of action. They also encourage the church family to aid in support and mentoring.

Many who live in orphanages have no hope of ever being adopted. Lifesong for Orphans has partnered with orphanages in Ukraine, Zambia and India in their Orphan Care program providing aid to nearly 2,000 orphans. Lifesong provides basic needs to these orphanages with financial support and mission teams, and hire national Christian staff members to provide biblical training and a safe environment. They also provide job skill training to prepare the children for their future role in society. As these young adults graduate into society, Lifesong helps provide transitional housing in Christian homes with the accountability of the church family offering them weekly Bible studies, counseling and transportation to church activities.

The United Nations reported that, “Over 12 million people worldwide are trafficked for forced labor or sexual exploitation." While slave labor trafficking is rampant worldwide, U.S. congress member Linda Smith, was rudely awakened to the horrors and injustice of sexual trafficking while on a tour in Bombay, India. "The hopeless faces of desperate women and children forced into prostitution" impelled her to take action, founding Shared Hope International.  The United States is primarily a destination-country for men, women, and children bought mainly from Mexico, Central America, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.  In addition to being a recipient of trafficking victims, the most recent data suggests that up to 300,000 American children are being commercially sexually exploited in the United States every year at the average age of 12, adding to the 3 billion dollar industry. More than 80% of America's commercially exploited children are first used at 11 years of age or younger. The increasing use of the internet has escalated victimization as figures show that more than 32 million individuals visit a porn site every month--1 out of 5 of these pornographic images depicts a child. The sex industry preys on women and children regardless of race or monetary status, capturing its victims in endless strategies from kidnapping, to being sold by family members to desperate attempts to obtain food and shelter.

SHI has served the world's most destitute to help free those women and children enslaved by this heinous crime, and are the first to thoroughly document the issue in the U.S. with the just released National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking.   They provide these victims with shelter, healthcare, education and vocational training opportunities with their three-pronged strategy--PREVENT, RESCUE and RESTORE. These efforts produce hope to lives shut up in darkness and fear. As quoted from their mission statement: "We will not give up. We will continue going into the darkness, rescuing and restoring young women and precious children--One life at a time."

We as Christians need to sound the call all across the churches of America and the world to fervently uphold these victims in prayer and take action to support these rescue ministries to make a difference TODAY!